artificial enemy
by xenovia
Summary: I stained my hands in order to make these summer days less boring. — Kano and Kido version of Artificial Enemy/Jinzou Enemy. Slight hints/implications of KanoKido.


She watches him with cold, calculating cobalt eyes, glaring from behind a computer screen that served as the ultimate wall between herself and the physical world. He, her master, rarely spoke. Rarely moved. Never bothered to open up the dusty curtains to let some light in, and never did he dare think of cracking open the windows for a few minutes for fresh, clean air. He's extremely unhealthy and he's sickeningly frail, with a sallow face and unkempt, most likely unwashed blond hair that tangled over his droopy eyelids. He was constantly in a disgusting state, and from what she'd seen him write - which he occasionally dabbled in - he felt that way of himself as well.

"You're going to get seriously sick one day," she chirped from his computer, darting about the square of visibility. He turned his head towards her, throwing a nearly empty soda can away onto the stained carpet. She frowned.

"Since when did you care, Kido?" he chuckled, spinning around in his swivel chair. Kido crossed her arms over her chest, trying to look as serious as possible.

"I've always worried about you, Kano," she murmured. "It's really unhealthy to live like this. Are you really going to hole yourself up in your room for the rest of your life?" Kano's eyes glimmered darkly in the dim light cast by the PC, and Kido felt an uncomfortable shiver run down her back. She eyed the red scissors lying under a stack of papers on his desk.

"Why don't you at least go take a shower?" she suggested, running a hand through her green hair. "I'll try to clean up your files." He shot a half-hearted smile at her.

"The Kido I know wouldn't do that," he replied emptily. "She'd make sure to ruin everything in there and mess with me over my secrets." The cyber-girl sighed.

"Just go clean yourself. You look absolutely disgusting." She stuck her tongue out at him and pointed at the time - one in the afternoon - and reminded him that his mother would be coming home soon from work, so he'd best go take that shower now.

"Alright, alright," Kano sighed, shoving his chair away as he yanked out clothes from his closet and a towel from the dresser, standing by the door. "…Don't cause too much trouble?"

"But then I wouldn't be 'the Kido you know'," she retorted. He could only manage a twisted smile before he left the room.

* * *

As she'd suspected, Kano never even took her advice. He'd simply sauntered through the kitchen and rampaged through the pantry for more soda and some junk foods, throwing his pulled-out clothes and unused towel onto the sofa downstairs. It wasn't like Kano had ever listened to her before, though, but it still hurt to see that he really didn't care about himself and that he'd disregard her worries so…carelessly.

"You lied," she snapped blankly when he returned, soda box in hand and chips stuffed in his mouth. He shrugged.

"When did I not?" That shut her up.

* * *

"…You looked through the pictures," Kano muttered darkly, face parallel to the ground. Kido blinked at him from within the computer, lips pursed and brow furrowed. She hadn't meant for him to find out - for him to discover she'd sifted through his pictures of Kousuke and Momo and Tsubomi.

Tsubomi - her past self, with the same knotted grass-green hair and the same foul expression printed on her face. And Kousuke and Momo, who'd both passed away. Kousuke committed suicide. Momo had died of a stroke.

It pained her deep down inside with every constant reminder that Kano didn't remember her - and that both Kousuke and Momo never would remember her either (or Kano, for the matter). Because they were dead and six feet under.

"Sorry. I got…curious." Her voice cracked at the last part despite her attempt to maintain composure. If Kano had noticed it, he didn't show it, for he didn't even move an inch from his hunched-over position.

"I thought I'd asked you to stop doing that," he croaked, fingernails digging into his knees. Kido stepped back a bit as he raised his head with a frightening expression visible below the blond mess of hair. "You could've deleted them."

"I assure you, I never would delete such important photos," Kido quickly answered, raising her hands up in defense. She'd never seen such a scary look on his face - really, she'd never seen much more than a silly, fake grin plastered to his pallid face or a look of excruciating apathy. She'd done nothing as she watched him grow progressively worse and worse.

"What do you know?" he shouted, hands flying up and gripping the sides of the computer wildly. He shook it and Kido could feel herself bump around, crashing into folders and deleting them accidentally with her forceful impacts. "You don't fucking know _anything!" _Though her vision was blurry and she was trembling, she could see tears form at the corners of his golden eyes as he shook the computer violently, fingernails scratching over the screen.

"Stop!" she yelled back, flying up as close as she could get to the real world. She pounded on the barrier with her fists. "Stop it, Kano! Stop!"

"No!" he screeched, shoving the computer back into the wall. Kido could feel pain sear up through her back to her neck and she gripped her digital head in pain, vision blurring even more. She sat still as Kano shot up from his chair, hands wiping furiously at his desk until he finally tossed away a pile of useless papers and uncovered a glittering pair of scissors. Her eyes widened.

"Don't do it!" she screamed. "Don't, please!" Kano gave her a crooked grin in response, an insane look in his darkened eyes.

"Oh, this isn't for me," he purred as he raised his hand and plunged the blades into the computer screen, shattering a portion of it whilst Kido screeched at the top of her lungs behind it. She could feel everything crumble around her, pieces falling off the barrier and turning into a gaping caliginous hole. She felt fear run through her nonexistent veins and she felt cold, helpless as Kano raged on.

"What the hell are you doing!?" Kano suddenly stopped, as if broken out of a trance, but his fingers flew to the keyboard. Kido watched as hundreds, perhaps thousands, of numbers and letters and symbols surrounded her, some racing forward and attacking her. Her head shot over in Kano's direction in fright.

"Wh-what are you doing?" she questioned, shaking at her knees. He could only give her a feigned sympathetic smile.

"You're just some stupid tool," he whispered. "I've gotten long bored of a toy than can only talk…" Her eyes widened and she felt her entire being freeze as Kano continued typing away. Red error messages began to pop up all around her, printing their terrifying words on her skin and on her code, but she did nothing but stare at her 'master'. He had finally betrayed her.

"Kano…" she whimpered. He pulled away from the desk, scissors in hand. "Why…?"

"I already said it," he replied harshly. "Goodbye, Kido." He swallowed a lump in his throat. "You were fun for a while, but you're even more boring than reality." He leered at her from the physical world in her last moments, not even flinching as she cried out as she faded away.

"…Shuuya!" the blurb of her glitchy voice rang in his ears, dread filling him down to the core.

How'd she know that? She might be part of a computer, but she wasn't that smart. He didn't use that name anymore and he'd never told it to her. But as he gazed at the remaining pieces of her vanishing self, he remembered.

"Tsubomi."

She let out a choked sob before she disappeared from his world forever.

* * *

"…Shuuya." He laughed weakly, sitting on his bed with the sheets and covers pushed over to the wall and only a silver of light entering the room from the uneven curtains. He smiled down at the blades held gently in his palm, waiting to meet with his throat.

"You could've told me." He raised the scissors up into the air, pointing straight at the target. He stared at them emotionlessly.

"Sorry I lied once again, but - when did I not?"

The scissors collided with his warm throat and the sticky, hot red liquid spilled everywhere, gurgling in his mouth as he sputtered out unintelligible worlds, halfway alive.

_Tsubomi, huh?_


End file.
